He entered his apartment to find Rusty still sitting on the couch watching TV. The cat turned those yellowish eyes on him in a long stare, as Chris hesitated near the door. He felt a bit nervous for some reason. He cleared his throat. “Umm…Rusty,” he began.

The cat blinked at him. He squirmed a bit. “About that collar you’ve got on,” he husked. What the hell was he doing? He wondered distantly. Talking to his cat like the beast could understand him…

Rusty yawned elaborately and began to lick one of his front paws. Chris swallowed. “That collar,” he went on bravely, “Has some weird writing on it. This girl at the library told me that it’s demonic script. Is it…are you…God, I wish you could talk!” he cried, running a hand through his hair in agitation. “It's just kind of weird. Especially since I can’t get that collar off. A sharp knife didn’t even make a dent in it. What is it made of? Why does it have that writing on it? Oh, never mind,” he muttered, shaking his head at himself. Trying to have a conversation with a cat was a useless exercise.

Azzandar considered the human as Chris rubbed at the side of his face. So, he’d figured out about the words on the slave collar? Interesting. Not that it probably mattered, as the human wasn’t a wizard, and so couldn’t break the powerful spell on the collar and free him. He snorted, twitching an ear. Humans as a race were pretty useless. The only thing that Chris was good for was feeding him and cleaning his litter box.

Chris came and sat down next to him. “Rusty,” he said, and he felt fingertips running along his spine. He decided to let the human pet him in peace for once, since Chris was clearly feeling agitated and confused and needed the comfort. It was best to indulge one’s slaves once in awhile.

Chris ventured into the occult bookstore rather timidly, hearing the jangle of the brass bells over the door. He hesitated, looking around at the shelves full of books and the wild, arcane things decorating the shop. He saw a skull with what looked like blood or red paint dripping down it, a strange stuffed animal that stared down at him from a shelf with glassy eyes, and a set of brass candlesticks with black candles in the holders. A hollow, resonant voice spoke nearby, making him jump. “Welcome to The Dark Side Book Shop. How may I help you?”

He whirled around, and saw a cadaverous-looking man dressed in long dark robes standing behind a counter and staring at him. A pair of watery blue eyes peered at him from under towering salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “Err, yeah,” Chris said nervously. “At least I hope so, anyway. I have some writing here that I’d like you to look at…” he added, fishing out the paper with the demonic script written on it.

Chris twitched but finally stepped toward the counter. He held out the paper, gasping a bit when the long fingers took the paper from his hand. The man turned the paper and looked down at it, squinting a little in the dim light. He drew in a sharp breath. “Where did you get this?!” he demanded, his voice sounding much more normal now.

“Umm…it was written on my cat’s collar,” Chris told him. “Those words, I mean. I copied them down so I could do some research on them. Can you read it or anything?”

“It is a powerful incantation,” the man told him grimly. “A spell. A binding spell, to be precise. And you say this was on your cat’s collar? How did it get there?”

“I don’t know,” he said helplessly. “He was a stray that I found in an alley, and the collar was already around his neck. I only found the words a few days ago, when I tried to cut the collar off. But I couldn’t even make a mark on the material that it’s made out of.”

The man twitched a little. “And you say that you found this animal in an alley? Already wearing this collar?”

“Yeah. Is that significant?” Chris asked worriedly.

“It definitely could be. I’m not sure, as yet. I will have to consult some texts about this,” he swept out from behind his counter and headed determinedly for his bookshelves. Chris watched him as he picked a volume and opened it. He read from the book, his eyes narrowing a little.

He looked up at last. “I believe that I can break this spell,” he said thoughtfully. “Using this text and a few others. I am curious to see why this cat is wearing this collar, and what will happen if I can break the spell. I will collect the necessary ingredients and come to your home. Where do you live?”

Chris wasn’t certain that he wanted to tell this creepy man where he lived, but at the same time he was almost unbearably curious to see why Rusty had a collar with a spell on it – a spell written in demonic script. So he reluctantly told the man his address, and the bookstore owner nodded austerely and practically shooed him out of the place. Chris was happy to go; the place was dark and weird and made him horribly uneasy.

He went home to wait for the man to show up. He found Rusty asleep on the window seat, and the cat only acknowledged his presence with a single ear twitch. Chris paced the apartment, feeling restless. He had so many questions jostling around inside of his head, and no way to really get any answers. What would happen when the cadaverous man tried to break the spell that he said was on Rusty’s collar?

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a knock on the door awhile later. He went over to open it, feeling his hands trembling a little with nervousness. The man from the bookstore was standing there, with a pile of books in one hand and a bag slung over his other shoulder. “I have brought everything that I believe necessary to break the spell,” he intoned.

“Ah, okay. Please come in,” Chris said, stepping back.

The cadaverous man stepped into his apartment. “Where is this cat of yours?” he asked.

Chris led the way to the window seat, where Rusty was still snoozing. The man stood looking down at the cat thoughtfully. “His appearance is that of a normal cat,” he noted.

“Uh, yeah. Except for the collar…”

The man leaned down and put out his hand, letting it hover over the collar but not quite touching it. “I sense a powerful dark magic here,” he said in sepulcherous tones.

Chris didn’t know what to say to this. The man retracted his hand, as Rusty stirred and opened his eyes. The cat lifted his head and stared at the black-clad stranger, his eyes fixed on the man’s face. The bookstore owner returned it warily. “I will need the beast to remain within a circle of power while I attempt to break the spell,” he told Chris, finally tearing his eyes away from the cat. “Is there any way for you to get him to stay within it?”

“Yeah. I can give him some tuna. While he’s eating that, he won’t leave the circle,” Chris told him.

“All right. We will begin. Bring him into the living room,” the man swept away, leaving Chris staring down at his cat. Rusty stared back at him, with the oddest expression on his furry face. Chris wondered what he was thinking.

Azzandar was thinking that if the skinny human could break the spell on the collar, then he would go along with all of this foolishness. He stood up, stretched, and jumped off of the window seat in a leisurely fashion. Chris gaped at him, as he strolled into the living room and paced over to where the black-clad man was kneeling on the floor. He sat down and looked at the human with impatience, willing him silently to just get on with it.

The human stared at him for a moment, then cautiously dug out a piece of chalk and began to draw a circle around the cat with it. Azzandar sat down and didn’t move. Chris said: “It's almost like – he knows what you’re doing…”

“I believe that he does,” the man replied. “This is a very unusual beast. More and more I anticipate breaking this spell.” He spoke as he wrote arcane symbols all around the outside of the circle. “Done.” He produced a brass bowl and set it down on the floor. He opened one of the books as he sat down cross-legged. “I’ll read the incantation now,” he told Chris. “Please don’t move or speak while I am doing it, so you don’t break my concentration.”

He nodded to show that he understood. The man cleared his throat, and looked down at the book. He began to read, speaking some strange heavy-sounding language. As he did so, he began to toss things into the brass bowl with his other hand. Rusty crouched in the circle and watched him intently. A weird smell began to permeate the apartment, and the hairs began to stand up on Chris’ neck. The air felt heavy. He struggled to breathe as the man’s chanting became more urgent. He tossed what looked like a handful of leaves into the bowl, on top of a thick, viscous-looking liquid and a little pile of bones. Rusty hissed softly, and his back rose into an arch. Chris wanted to beg the man to stop, because he felt a great sense of apprehension overtake him. But he couldn’t seem to speak…

There was a rush of chaotic sound and reddish light. The man made a choked sound, as black smoke poured through the room. Chris began to cough and hack desperately, squinting with watery eyes. What had happened? Suddenly, the air cleared, and his eyes and mouth widened as he stared in shock at the sight before him. Where the man had been was a little pile of black ash. Rusty was still crouched in the circle, his ears flattened to his skull. And a gigantic, red-skinned, winged and horned apparition was standing over the pile of ashes, scowling down at the cat. This creature carried some kind of twisted black staff or something in its hand. Yellow eyes rose to meet his, and a wide mouth opened to display an impressive set of jagged teeth. Chris did the only thing feasible in a situation like this – he fainted dead away.

Azzandar crouched on the floor and hissed savagely. The spell that the human had been casting to try to break the slave collar had been interrupted – and had burned said human into a pile of ashes in the process. The reason for all of this was standing in front of him, looking down at his miserable, furry cat form. “Well, well,” the demon wizard rumbled. “I see that you were trying to break the spell on the collar, Majesty. For shame.” He waved a clawed finger mockingly down at the cat.

He growled in the back of his throat, which made the demon laugh derisively. Then he made a motion with his staff. “There. You can speak,” he said.

Azzandar let loose with a string of creative, colorful curses that would have raised the demon’s brows – if he’d had any. “Now, now,” he said after Azzandar was finished. “Such vitriol.”

“If I had my real form I’d pull out your entrails out and fed them to you,” Azzandar snarled furiously.

“I’m sure you would. But fortunately for you, I’m going to overlook your surliness,” the demon wizard remarked. “In point of fact, I may even do you a favor. I take it that you don’t much care for that form?”

“Oh, no; I LOVE being a tiny furry thing with no hands and no ability to speak,” Azzandar drawled.

A chuckle. “That’s as I thought. While I cannot and will not remove the collar around your neck, I can make your stay in this realm more pleasant for you.”

Azzandar gave him a suspicious look. “Why would you do that?” he demanded warily.

“Because I do not much care for your brother or his way of ruling our Realm,” the wizard told him. “But I am not stupid enough to buck him publically. I can, however, do something to undermine him. Such as helping his brother, who is our former king,” the demon explained.

“And what exactly are you going to do to help me?” Azzandar asked, still not trusting him. He was a demon, after all.

“Just this,” The demon wizard grinned toothily and waggled his fingers in front of him.

Azzandar felt something happening in his body. He yowled, a sound that ululated and went up and down the scale as he began to change –to grow, to transform, to become something different. His howls became pain-filled as the transformation took hold and his bones began to crack as they stretched, his muscles pulled, his internal organs rearranged themselves…he blacked out briefly, and when he came back to himself he was sprawled on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. He jerked, spasming as his muscles protested. He croaked, and then demanded weakly: “What have you done to me?”

The demon wizard produced a piece of polished obsidian and knelt down next to him. “Take a look,” he told Azzandar.

He peered muzzily into the mirror, his eyes widening at what he saw. The face looking back at him was no longer a cat’s – instead it was a human’s! Well, mostly a human’s. His eyes were still yellow, and had cat-slit pupils. His ears had migrated down to where they should be for a human, but they were distinctly pointed and had a ruffle of reddish-brown hair along the outer rim. He could clearly see fangs between his lips. And when he lifted a hand to touch those lips, he saw claws on the ends of his fingers. “What ridiculous transformation is this?” he spat in disgust.

The demon wizard shrugged. “it is the best that I can do under the geas of the collar,” he replied calmly. “It wishes you to be an animal. And since over a dozen of us worked on that spell in the first place, I cannot entirely overcome the magic of my brethren. You will simply have to live with it as is. At least you’re no longer fully a beast, eh? Be happy about that fact, since it’s all I can do.”

Azzandar glowered at him, but the demon rose to his feet nonchalantly. He prodded the pile of ashes with his clawed toe. “About what you could expect when a human tries to break one of our spells,” he said sardonically. “There was no way that he would have succeeded, even if he hadn’t activated the warning spell built into the collar that told me that someone was trying to tamper with it. Foolish humans,” he waved a hand above the ashes, which dissipated into thin air.

Azzandar struggled to sit up. He wasn’t used to this new form yet. He became aware of something lying on the floor behind him – something furry. His head cranked around, and his jaw dropped when he saw that it was a reddish-brown tail! And it was attached to his hindquarters just above his buttocks. Stupid wizard! He turned a yellow glare on the demon, who merely smirked at him. “I’ll just be going now,” he said. “I’ll report that this was a false alarm. Enjoy your life in the human realm, Majesty,” he added before he waved his staff in front of him and faded out of sight in a burst of dark smoke. Mocking laughter faded out along with him.

*****

Azzandar growled under his breath. When he got back into his demon form, he was going to be sure to look that wizard up and have a little talk with him. A talk that would involve a lot of bloodshed and pain…he got onto his hands and knees, turning his head slowly. He saw Chris lying on the floor nearby, unmoving. Azzandar could see that his chest was rising and falling, so he wasn’t dead. He crawled over there slowly, trying to adjust to his new form and the aches and pains that lingered after the transformation.

When he reached Chris, he slapped the human’s cheek briskly. “Wake up, human!” he roared.

Chris started, his body jerking. His eyes flew open, and he stared blankly up at Azzandar’s face. Then his eyes focused, and he gasped as his eyes widened. He came up off the floor in a rush, scooting on his butt away from the strange (very strange!) man crouched on the ground where he’d just been lying. “Who are you?!” he shrilled in terror. “What’s going on?!”

“Oh, calm down,” Azzandar snapped.

Chris looked around wildly. “Where is it?!”

“Where is what?” Azzandar demanded.

“That THING! With the red skin and the horns and the wings and everything!” Chris cried.

“Oh, him. He departed back to the Dark Realm,” Azzandar said. “You have nothing to fear.”

“Oh, yeah! What about you?! I mean, what the hell are you? Who the hell are you?! What are you doing in my apartment?!” Chris said, trembling.

Azzandar sighed in a long-suffering way. “I am Azzandar,” he replied as patiently as he could. “As to who I am – I was a demon, just like the one you saw earlier. But my wretched brother put me in chains and had wizards transform me into a cat. Your cat. Rusty,” he went on in explanation.

Chris gaped at him. “You’re Rusty?” he said feebly.

Azzandar nodded. “That is correct. The miserable excuse for a wizard changed me into a human, but he didn’t manage to finish the job. Which is why I look like this, now,” he added, lifting a hand to glare at the distinct claws he was sporting. “But I am still trapped by this collar,” he reached up to touch the collar, which, while it had slightly altered its size to fit around a human neck, still looked the same otherwise. “This is my slave chain. While it is around my neck, I cannot return to my true form.”

“As a demon,” Chris said, sounding dazed.

“That is correct. I was once King of the Demons. Now I am one of your kind,” Azzandar remarked in disgust. “But I am also a human with a tail. Ridiculous.”

“Wow,” Chris breathed. “I can’t…I mean…this is too much to take in,” he said weakly. ‘Were you really my cat?”

Azzandar lifted a hand to touch the hair atop his head. “Is this not the same color as your cat’s coat? And are my eyes not the same? The collar around my neck has not changed, either. Accept the fact that I am…or was…your cat. Now I am human like you…or semi-human, anyway,” he added dryly.

Chris shook his head as though to clear it. “Please help me,” he pleaded miserably. “I don’t understand this at all. What happened here? Where’s that guy who was doing the spell? How’d you end up a cat in the first place?”

Azzandar considered whether he should bother answering any of these questions, but decided in the long run that he needed Chris. He couldn’t go out on his own in the human realms looking like this, and he had no way of feeding or taking care of himself in this form. He had no powers to conjure anything, and he doubted that this human body was strong enough for him to just take what he wanted and needed. So he sighed and began to patiently tell the human his entire story from the beginning, when he’d woken up from a sleep spell to find himself in magical chains. He told Chris about being turned into a cat by his perfidious brother, of being tossed through the portal to the human realm, of being found in the alley by Chris and being taken in as the human’s pet…right up until the other human had tried to break the spell on the collar and had ended up being incinerated for his troubles, and had summoned a demon wizard because of the warning spell on the collar. He finished by telling Chris how the wizard had turned him into a human…sort of. That he was now stuck in this halfway form, not really a cat but not really a human, either.

Chris listened to this recitation in fascination. He wouldn’t have believed a word of it if the cat/man had not been sitting (gloriously naked) right in front of him in his living room, and he hadn’t seen the demon that had made him faint in terror. And those eyes were definitely Rusty’s, even though they were now framed in a mostly human face. An exotic, high-cheekboned face…dear God, his former pet was gorgeous! Chris tried to push this thought out of his head, but it wouldn’t quite leave. Even knowing that Rusty…err…Azzandar had once been a demon like that terrible red-skinned creature, he still couldn’t quite get past the fact that the ‘man’ sitting there in front of him in all of his marvelous nudity was very, very hot. It had definitely been WAY too long since he’d gotten laid.

Azzandar finished talking and looked at him expectantly. He blinked as his mind started to work a little again. “Umm…” he began uncertainly.

A snort. “I am still stuck in these human realms for now,” Azzandar said. “In this form, I cannot fend for myself. I need your help, human.”